Limbaugh: Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that President Obama has sent 100 “advisers” to Uganda to help take out the Lord’s Resistance Army, a particularly brutal terror group that operates in that country as well as in the Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic. As a general rule, I think this is a bad idea without much deliberation and consultation with Congress. This is, after all, how the Vietnam war began. It should not be a unilateral decision; the public should at least have some understanding of why it’s happening and what the goals are. But Rush Limbaugh thinks it’s bad because the LRA is a good Christian group:

Now, up until today, most Americans have never heard of the combat Lord’s Resistance Army. And here we are at war with them. Have you ever heard of Lord’s Resistance Army, Dawn? How about you, Brian? Snerdley, have you? You never heard of Lord’s Resistance Army? Well, proves my contention, most Americans have never heard of it, and here we are at war with them. Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians. It means God. I was only kidding. Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. That’s what the lingo means, “to help regional forces remove from the battlefield,” meaning capture or kill.

So that’s a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda, and — (interruption) no, I’m not kidding…

Lord’s Resistance Army objectives. I have them here. “To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people.” Now, again Lord’s Resistance Army is who Obama sent troops to help nations wipe out. The objectives of the Lord’s Resistance Army, what they’re trying to accomplish with their military action in these countries is the following: “To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people; to fight for the immediate restoration of the competitive multiparty democracy in Uganda; to see an end to gross violation of human rights and dignity of Ugandans; to ensure the restoration of peace and security in Uganda, to ensure unity, sovereignty, and economic prosperity beneficial to all Ugandans, and to bring to an end the repressive policy of deliberate marginalization of groups of people who may not agree with the LRA ideology.” Those are the objectives of the group that we are fighting, or who are being fought and we are joining in the effort to remove them from the battlefield.

Oh yeah, they’re practically the church youth group down the street from you. If only. Max Fisher provides some of the details of this barbaric group:

Part insurgency and part cult, the Lord’s Resistance Army has waged a 20-year campaign of terror across Uganda, where it originally formed in opposition to the government there, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, and Sudan. It raids villages, massacres for no other purpose than bloodlust, enslaves child soldiers and child sex slaves, drugs its captives to make them more violent, all in an apparently endless mission that has destroyed countless villages and killed thousands of civilians, transforming one of the world’s least governed spaces into one of its most dangerous.

A 2009 U.S. law authorizing financial support to Uganda against the LRA cites studies finding the LRA had abducted 66,000 children and displaced two million civilians. Last year, Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth — no hawk — called on Obama to use U.S. military force against the Lord’s Resistance Army. Roth cited the group’s overwhelming humanitarian toll, its small size, and (unlike, for example, the Taliban) its extreme unpopularity among the populations it terrorizes.

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

pacal

Well Well Limbaugh once again indicates how much he hates Obama.

Aquaria

Why won’t this fetid pile of shit just die already?

arakasi

It raids villages, massacres for no other purpose than bloodlust, enslaves child soldiers and child sex slaves, drugs its captives to make them more violent

I’m fairly certain that Limbaugh is in favor of all of these

Brownian

Again I wonder how much of Limbaugh’s schtick is pure ignorance, and how much is performance theatre.

I really think it used to be the latter, but the tendency for celebrities to start believing their own idiocy is well known.

Francisco Bacopa

Every time Limbaugh does something stupid, I post a link to this song:

The old red team-blue team subjective morality. Terrorism is only terrorism when the other team commits it. If your team does something, it is good precisely because your team did it.

That moral subjectivism is a central tenet of Christian fundamentalism, and they’re overcoming the instinctive shame induced by living in a civilized society. All that’s left is for them to call a spade a spade and just admit that they’re subjectivists and postmodernists.

jameshanley

Obama has sent troops, United States troops

What other country’s troops could Obama possibly send?

http://cfiottawa.com Eamon Knight

Obviously, Limbaugh had never heard of the LRA, or he’d be aware of their reputation — I’ve known about them for years, through sources no more sophisticated than mainstream news (OK: it’s the CBC, which is a radical communist subversive organization by dittohead standards). So just how fucking clued out do you have to be to spew shit like this?

Any chance we’ll see a shame-faced retraction from Rush when someone clues him in? OK, how about a mealy-mouthed notpology?

carolw

My guess is that the puss-bag knee-jerked on “the lawrd” and never did a bit of research. He can take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.

I found a link to a heatrbreaking video by a victim of the LRA on another site.

You know what? I do believe we’ve hit bottom here. I’m sure fringe lunatics and religious fanatics say even more awful things, but for a mainstream political voice, this takes the gold medal. The LRA are basically the worst people in the world. At least the Balkans war criminals committed their atrocities for a reason, albeit a thoroughly deplorable and indefensible one. The LRA does all that and worse because, well, that’s just how they roll. Embracing them simply because Obama opposes them? If it gets any lower than that, I don’t know.

Wow. Just wow.

raven

You know what? I do believe we’ve hit bottom here.

There is no bottom.

thztds

Obama has sent troops, United States troops

What other country’s troops could Obama possibly send?

Why secret Muslim Commie Kenyan troops of course!

Brain Hertz

You know what? I do believe we’ve hit bottom here.

I’ve thought that many times before. I’ve always been wrong.

abb3w

But Rush assures us that these are True Christians….

schism

[The LRA] raids villages, massacres for no other purpose than bloodlust, enslaves child soldiers and child sex slaves, drugs its captives to make them more violent, all in an apparently endless mission that has destroyed countless villages and killed thousands of civilians, transforming one of the world’s least governed spaces into one of its most dangerous.

I’m going to have to award Limbaugh half a point here. Nothing in the quote is mutually exclusive with being Christian, if history is any indication, so I totally believe his hyperventilating about Obama sending US troops to kill Christians.

Pierce R. Butler

But at least the LRA is not Teh Ghey!

http://cfiottawa.com Eamon Knight

You know, I kind of wish the West would send in some serious muscle and end the LRA once for all — I mean, if they’re not that numerous and not locally popular, how hard could it be? Gotta be way easier than putting down the Taliban or the Iraqi insurgents, or even mopping up the remains of the Ghadafi regime. The main problem is what do with the child soldiers they’ve created — it seems way wrong just to slaughter them along with the leadership, but they’re going to need some serious rehab to make them safe to live among civilized humans.

But of course: there’s no oil in Uganda, and the LRA hasn’t shot or bombed anyone in Europe or North America, so who cares?

rabbitscribe

In my constant quest to sate my cravings for freaky shit on the Internet, I frequent a Marxist revolutionary forum (and I mean real Marxist revolutionaries, not people who are OK with Medicare). Recently someone was cheerleading the Quadafi loyalists. Asked, “Where, exactly, is our dog in this hunt?” the reply came, “They’re shooting at NATO, right? Duh…” They hate Obama and always have, but are are begrudgingly OK with the Ugandan mission. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I also frequent a collaborative Libertarian website that has advocated allowing teenagers to carry concealed handguns in school (what could possibly go wrong?). They hate Obama almost as much as they hate Abraham Lincoln, that tyrant, but they concede that the LRA is sort of a special case and aren’t bitching about this particular expenditure of their tax dollars. I am simply astounded that a public figure with an audience of millions (tens of millions?) can adopt a position more extreme then that of those folks. Un fucking believable.

Any bets on whether this disappears down the memory hole, he backs off, or he doubles down?

http://rockstarramblings.blogspot.com/ Bronze Dog

You know, if there was any justice in the world, someone in the mainstream media would just say what this is: “Limbaugh Sympathizes With Terrorist Sex Slavers.”

Of course, it’s not “politically correct” to point out the depravity.

rabbitscribe

“… how hard could it be?”

They operate in a heavily forested area twice the size of Texas.

ariamezzo

I hope Limbaugh’s audience is smarter than this.

I don’t know, though. I really don’t.

http://www.pandasthumb.org Area Man

“As a general rule, I think this is a bad idea without much deliberation and consultation with Congress.”

As a general rule, the less Congress micromanages foreign policy, the better. They passed the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, which really should be enough. It specifically says that providing military support is a policy goal. I think 100 military advisers easily fits under the definition of “military support”.

http://www.pandasthumb.org Area Man

“The LRA are basically the worst people in the world.”

It’s possible to be worse. For example, hating your own president enough to be the LRA’s apologist.

ambulocetacean

They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan.

Um… isn’t the LRA now South Sudan’s problem? And isn’t South Sudan 82 per cent non-Muslim?

And if Rush is so concerned about the Christians, does he have a position on the LRA practice of locking whole congregations inside churches and setting them on fire?

@Eamon Knight: I don’t think it’d be easy at all to wipe out the LRA. They move back and forth across the borders of several countries, often in remote, forested areas. In that way (and pretty much only that way) they’re a like the FARC in Colombia, which have also proved notoriously difficult to wipe out.

rabbitscribe

“It’s possible to be worse. For example, hating your own president enough to be the LRA’s apologist.”

Right. Mass murder, slavery, and child rape is one thing. But denialism on the radio to serve a political agenda is even worse. Got it.

MadMax

If only we lived in a society where ignorantly defending a group of murdering rapist slavers, for no reason other than that you hate a political party which half the country belongs to, was sufficient cause for a person to lose all respect with everyone forever.

Alas, this disgusting excuse for a human will probably have a nationally syndicated radio show until the day he dies, after which he will be replaced by someone ever more depraved.

kraut

I have known about the LRA ever since the first reports came out in the CBC – maybe ten years ago or more?

My guess is that Canadian news are not that fixated on just national events, Canada being a small country by population having to defend its interests not by might but by intelligent diplomacy, which leads to higher awareness even of the general populace, something that seems utterly absent in US of A – both the awareness and the intelligent diplomacy.

Let Limbaugh defend the LRA – those who start checking into their brutal history will soon realize that this exponent of a xian extreme right wing has lost any right to speak to human rights or values at all, and has with this statement portrait himself as either an ignorant fool of the highest magnitude or a psychopath.

dingojack

“Have you ever heard of Lord’s Resistance Army, Dawn? How about you, Brian? Snerdley, have you? You never heard of Lord’s Resistance Army? Well, proves my contention, most Americans have never heard of it, and here we are at war with them.”

Well at least Rush is being all scientificky about it. [/sarcasm]

Dingo

Aquaria

“Have you ever heard of Lord’s Resistance Army, Dawn? How about you, Brian? Snerdley, have you? You never heard of Lord’s Resistance Army? Well, proves my contention, most Americans have never heard of it, and here we are at war with them.”

Dingo, there’s only one reply to give to that:

Most Americans couldn’t tell you that Guatemala is south of Mexico.

Hell, it’s scary how many of them don’t know that the country immediately south of Texas is Mexico.

sunsangnim

Now that we’ve overturned DADT, what if some of the 100 troops are gay? Now we’re sending gay troops to help the Muslims fight against the Christians. This just proves my contention, folks. Obama is the Antichrist.

Gregory

Keep in mind that the LRA is doing exactly what Limbaugh and so many other far right wingers wish they could do.

Airplane Butcher

There may be a point that is being missed. I work with several loyal listeners of Rush. They take everything that is spewed from his mouth at face value. No questions asked. Rush knows his audience. If his audience took the time to examine his claims they might come the conclusion that they are being played like fiddles. Rush knows he can get away with making ridculous claims because he panders to his audience’s fears. Some critical thinking and a little research would do wonders in these situations.

http://rockstarramblings.blogspot.com/ Bronze Dog

There may be a point that is being missed. I work with several loyal listeners of Rush. They take everything that is spewed from his mouth at face value.

That’s one reason I’ll probably bring up his terrorist sex slaver sympathies whenever his name comes up. If child sex slavery doesn’t get them to think about the issue, I doubt anything will.

wpjoe

I think Rush couldn’t pass up an opportunity to say that the president was sending troops to fight against xians. It doesn’t matter that they commit atrocities. The audience will just see it as proof for what they already believe, that the president is a muslim communist that wants to destroy xianity. It doesn’t even matter that it be repeated in the mainstream media, word of mouth information about the president being a muslim permeated VA during the 08 election (maybe elsewhere as well). I’m sure the info about the president sending troops against xians will go the same way.

http://langcultcog.com/traumatized DuWayne

Ed –

As a general rule, I think this is a bad idea without much deliberation and consultation with Congress.

Congress passed legislation authorizing this last year. It should be noted that a) we have had military advisers in Uganda for several years now and b) Bush actually authorized that support in the name of the war against terror. This has been in the planning since the abysmal failure of the Bush admin supported, joint (Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Uganda) offensive “Lightening Thunder” against the LRA. It can be reasonably argued that the U.S. has a responsibility to clean up the mess made by our earlier involvement in the fight against the LRA.

The bottom line though, is that this intervention has had at least as much republican support as is has had from the democrats. The naysaying by Limbaugh and republican leaders is worse than disingenuous, it’s out and out bullshit.

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About the Author

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. Read More...